


Of Suspension and Disbelief

by rallamajoop



Series: drozd-belobrovik [2]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BDSM, Bottom!Napoleon, Established Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon Divergence, THRUSH!Illya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 19:57:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11409147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rallamajoop/pseuds/rallamajoop
Summary: Hardly has he begun to wonder what’s become of his intruder when the air shifts at his back and warm hands settle on his chest, a voice in his ear murmuring, "Ah, Napoleon. What have you got yourself into this time?"





	Of Suspension and Disbelief

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings much as for the first entry in the series, though with more bondage and less gun-kink.

By the end of his first hour balancing uncomfortably on the balls of his feet, Napoleon's initial confidence that time was on his side is starting to feel a little ill-founded. 

Makeshift though his present accommodations may be, the men who'd strung him up had known their business. Had they been content to hang him on a hook and leave him, he might well have found a way to work himself free by now. Instead, his jailors have him dangling from his manacles on the end of a rope strung over a high rafter, the far end of the line anchored somewhere well out of reach or view. The combined length of rope and chain holds him just high enough that the cuffs dig into his wrists with intent to gouge if he stays flat-footed on the floor, but the alternative—balancing on his toes to take the edge off the pressure—has long since taken its own toll on his ankles and calves. Suspended with his face towards the corner, there's no wall behind Napoleon to take any of his weight, leaving him at his liberty to find the least-miserable medium between two distinct flavours of discomfort. 

There's precious little else to focus on for distraction, save the interminable sound of water dripping from somewhere in the ceiling at infuriatingly irregular intervals—almost as if someone had heard about Chinese water torture but not quite absorbed the gist of the thing. A faint, persistent smell of old fish lingers as testament to the original purpose of this chilly, thick-walled room, presumably some sort of village storehouse in its previous life. 

Escape from a place so patently unintended to house prisoners ought not to have been beyond the means of a competent agent. Napoleon could easily have dealt with the lock with ease were he still in possession of one or two well-concealed devices which had been subtracted from his assets when the guards stripped him of his shirt, watch and shoes; even if forced to improvise his own lock picks, he could probably have managed it eventually. But that's pretty cold comfort when getting to the door at all remains so far beyond his present means. 

His one real comfort is knowing that if they hadn't yet brought in the charming Miss Carla O'Reilly to use as a bargaining chip, then they can't have caught her. With any luck, by now she's far from here, calling in the cavalry. That's a glimmer of hope worth holding onto, when all else he has to look forward to is the inevitable round of torture and interrogation that must be coming. That they've left him unmolested this long is perhaps only in hope that a few good hours of anticipation, fatigue and strain will do the job of softening him up without their input. 

The sound of the door being unlocked bounces startlingly loud off the bare brick of the walls, louder for the long silence preceding. Napoleon listens carefully as the door swings open, but no-one calls his name, and the sound of some distant ruckus going on outside—anything that might inspire some optimism—is disappointingly absent. He hears someone moving in the doorway, then the door slams shut again, followed by the loud click of a key turning in the lock from outside, dashing the last of what little hope he'd bothered to entertain that this might be a rescue in progress. Ah well. It had seemed a little early to hope as much. 

Awareness that he's no longer alone in his cell arrives in the ringing echo of footsteps, advancing steadily across the raw stone floor. Odd that whoever it is hasn't announced themselves. Not Doctor Achilles again—that isn't his style at all. The weight of the boots and the length of the stride suggest an intruder of masculine persuasion, but otherwise, Napoleon is quite in the dark. 

The footsteps have closed the better part of the distance between the door and Napoleon's far corner when they stop short. It's an effort not to twitch under the prickle of unseen eyes, heavy on the back of Napoleon's neck. When the intruder begins to move again, his footsteps proceed not to Napoleon's corner, but somewhere to his left, the opposite direction altogether—but Napoleon thinks he knows this game. His visitor will take his time to tour the room, to let the captive wonder what's in store for him, to hope that perhaps his guest is here merely to retrieve something from one of the old storage crates he'd glimpsed as they'd hustled him into the room. Only then will he grant Napoleon an answer he'll not like at all. 

If Napoleon can get in just one good kick, when the man gets close enough… but it won't do him much good, when he's aiming blind—and even if he gets lucky enough to take the intruder down, what then? He won't further his escape that way.

The footsteps stop a second time. There's a rough noise, rope sliding against rope, and Napoleon has just time to register a wave of tension skidding down the restraints above his head before the rope slackens all in one rush. As if the ground has been pulled from beneath him, Napoleon experiences one startling moment of freefall. The distance that he drops is all of half a foot—barely the equivalent of a single missed stair—but when his heels hit the floor for the first blissful time in more minutes than he can count, Napoleon lands dizzy with vertigo and relief. He gasps aloud and staggers forward—not far, the cuffs catch him again before he can collapse—startled to rediscover the weight of his own body in this devastating new alignment.

For a long moment in the aftermath he loses track of his intruder altogether. Hardly shas he begun to wonder at their motives when the air shifts at his back and warm hands settle on his chest, a voice in his ear murmuring, "Ah, Napoleon. What have you got yourself into this time?"

He _knows_ that voice, though he'd never thought to hear it here. 

"Illya!" he gasps. Another time, he might have been ashamed by how willingly he sags into the body at his back, grateful beyond belief to let Illya take some of his weight. Illya, for his part, moulds himself obligingly to Napoleon and holds him close, offering nary so much as a sly comment about professional weakness to mar the moment. 

"Shh," Illya murmurs, hands moving in comforting circles as he embraces Napoleon from behind. "You did not think to see me here today."

Napoleon can't technically see him now, though he doesn't feel much need to quibble over the semantics of the issue. He doesn't want Illya to move an inch from where he is. "Dare I hope," he inquires, "that you're here to… decommission another troublesome operation?"

"No," Illya's breath tickles at Napoleon's scalp. "I am afraid THRUSH finds no cause for dissatisfaction with the work of the good doctor at this time. Knowing my long experience with yourself, he has asked me to be the one to interrogate you."

Napoleon tenses. "Do you plan to… torture me?" The very thought turns his veins to ice. Napoleon's body doesn't know how to feel about the idea of Illya with a whip or a hot poker. Illya has always liked it rough; has backed him into doors or shoved him against walls and _pushed_ , has left him with intimate aches he'd savoured for days after the fact, discretely checking his shirt cuffs to make sure the rings of reddened flesh on his wrists were hidden. One or twice, he's even gone so far as to blame bruises that were Illya's fault on enemy action—or at least, he's let colleagues assumeas much. They all know the risks of his profession. 

But Napoleon endures that treatment—savours it, even—in the comfort of knowing that Illya, for all his bluster, has never really hurt him. He's never given Napoleon reason to believe he finds any great appeal in causing pain for pain's own sake—and Napoleon, for his own part, suspects he doesn't have the time he'd need to learn to enjoy it, even at Illya's hands. He knows pain a little too well to reassess its intentions now.

That is, if Illya _intends_ for either of them to enjoy it. If he simply wants information… then Napoleon is in another bind. With any ordinary interrogator, he'd at least have the option of lying. But he doesn't know if he can lie to Illya, not simply because Illya knows too well, but because it's always been the one unwritten rule of their relationship that they _don't_ lie to one another. Dissemble or withhold, certainly, or avoid certain topics of conversation, but Napoleon hasn't lied to Illya outright since the day they met. And what Illya tells him, he trusts—probably more than a wiser man should. 

They've never defined what happens should they end up here. 

But Illya simply chuckles into his hair, "A little, perhaps." He opens his mouth over the back of Napoleon's neck, warm and wet, and Napoleon breathes out, understanding, and knows himself lost. "But I confessed that even supposing I were the man who could break Napoleon Solo, I am… disinclined to try. I have not spent this many months cultivating his belief that he can trust me only to waste it on the trivia of discovering how some young friend of his may be planning to leave the island." 

The moment gone, Napoleon can scarcely find it in himself to remember how he ever doubted Illya to begin with. "Well, then. What _do_ you plan to do with me?"

Against the skin of his neck, Napoleon feels Illya smile. "I have been authorised to use any means I felt may make you more pliable," he tells Napoleon, "though I made no promises. And now I am here, it seems such a waste to spend my time asking questions you will not answer." The heat of Illya's mouth returns, open against the nape of Napoleon's neck, then higher, the press of his lips slow and thoughtless, as if he can't quite help himself. "I must confess, I do find the sight of you in chains most inspiring. How cruel of them to leave you so uncovered in this chill."

If Napoleon had noticed the chill before, he isn't feeling it now. There's much to be said for the power of distraction; the stiff ache in the back of his legs and the sting of his wrists seem now like such distant concerns. Instead, Napoleon feels the warmth of Illya's hands as they roam idly down his chest, the insistent pressure of Illya's arousal, tight against his back, and he _wants_ , with a fervour he wouldn't have imagined himself was capable of, only minutes ago. 

"Well, Napoleon?" Illya murmurs against his throat. "Do you think we could find a more pleasant way to pass the time?" One hand drops meaningfully to rest upon the upper hem of Napoleon's trousers, his thumb dipping briefly in between the layers of fabric, stroking lightly against Napoleon's boxers, and then Illya abandons pretence and moves lower still, cupping Napoleon's groin firmly through the front of his pants. 

Every sensible objection Napoleon might have raised evaporates. " _Illya_ ," he whispers, " _please_ ," and is rewarded when Illya tightens his grip and thrusts against him from behind, insistently hard even through three or more layers of fabric, shoving Napoleon forward into his hand. One rough thrust, and he's hard enough to feel suddenly light-headed. 

Illya bites him on the back, above his shoulder blade, and hums in contentment. "You never do disappointment me." His hands settle on Napoleon's fly. Pants and underwear are both pushed roughly down over Napoleon's hips in one go, left to pool on the floor around his feet. The cool of the air on his skin is heightened by Illya's taking this moment to step back slightly, letting the fabric pass, or perhaps just appreciating the view. It's hard to keep track of him precisely while he's out of sight. 

It occurs to Napoleon that Illya more than likely isn't going to unchain him when they're done here. He still hasn't laid eyes on Illya, and may not be allowed to see him properly at all, during or after. The ache of disappointment mingles with a strange, vicious thrill, at the thought of being used so, at Illya's hands. 

Illya runs two fingers slowly down the length of Napoleon's spine, then into the crease between his buttocks. Veering right, he gently traces the top of Napoleon's thigh, then cups his hand around the globe of Napoleon's ass above, kneading it appreciatively. "Can you bend forward at all?"

Napoleon can, if not far. "Goood," murmurs Illya, drawing out the vowel. There's a soft, wet sound, and when Illya's fingers dip into Napoleon's crease again, they're cool with something damp and slick. Napoleon shivers. 

Illya drags his fingers up over the pucker of Napoleon's entrance and down again. Taking his time, doing little more than greasing up Napoleon's behind. Typical Illya. 

Then again, time _is_ on Napoleon's side today. He hopes. 

"The view from this angle is quite something," Illya comments. "Why do we not do this standing up more often?"

Napoleon looks ruefully at the cuffs still holding his wrists above his head. "I, ah, suspect most hotel rooms aren't well equipped to suspend chains from the ceiling."

"The chains are not essential," Illya says dismissively, even as he begins to press a finger into Napoleon's body, wonderfully, terribly slow. "If I asked you nicely to hold still and face the wall, you would oblige me?"

"I… could be convinced." There's little doubt Napoleon could be convinced to do much worse, if Illya were his reward. 

But Illya seems to take Napoleon's careful understatement another way entirely. A short exhale of amusement ruffles the hair at the nape of his neck as Illya rises to his feet and leans close. "Perhaps you would prefer our positions were reversed?" he whispers in Napoleon's ear, the slow twist of his fingers working him from within. "Me, against the wall, and you, taking me."

_I'd prefer to see your face_ , is Napoleon's first thought. That's how they usually do it, inasmuch as there is a 'usually', when encounters like this are few and long months between, and Illya generally prefers to top when the chance arises—a state of affairs Napoleon has rarely felt the need to object to. After today, he's not sure there could be a way Illya could propose to have him that he'd object to, if not even being chained up in a THRUSH dungeon gives him second thoughts. If and when Napoleon finds himself holding the reins, he doesn't like to miss a moment of the view—the evidence of everything he can do for Illya written in the lines of his face. Illya is a demanding customer, prone to being difficult purely for the sake of it, and the more Napoleon can see of what he's doing to him, the better. That Illya would ask for anything else seems quite uncharacteristic. Even picturing it takes some readjustment. 

Then again, perhaps that's the point. That Illya would offer to turn his back on anyone, even invite Napoleon to pin him against the wall … perhaps that warrants further thought. 

"Would you like that?" he asks Illya, intrigued despite himself. 

"Perhaps someday the opportunity will present itself," says Illya, impishly. "Of course, first, you would have to get out of this one. Do you have an escape plan, Napoleon?"

A plan? Napoleon glances ruefully skywards. Less a plan than a prayer. "It would hardly be in my interests to tell you if I did."

"If your stay here is very long, perhaps I will find time to come back."

Trust Illya to find a way to make even extended incarceration at the hands of THRUSH sound dangerously appealing. It may be a little late to worry about it now, though, as Illya crooks his finger gently forward, finding his target with expert precision, injecting Napoleon's next exhale with a breathy gasp. 

"There you are," Illya murmurs as his finger continues to move: barely thrusting, hardly more than rubbing, tantalisingly gentle. 

" _Illya_ ," Napoleon gasps, feeling himself go lax and pliant under Illya's hands. Oh, but that felt good. Much too late to worry what this might be doing to his responses now, though the absurdity of the situation—restrained and naked, deep in enemy territory, an enemy nigh as deep in him, straining less against his chains than against that against teasing pressure—is hard to ignore. One shouldn't feel at once helpless and so very safe.

"Did you want something, Napoleon?" Illya teases, still rubbing, so gently, at Napoleon's insides. 

"Just this," Napoleon murmurs. Some little concentration is needed to stop himself rocking backwards on his heels, the need for more building steadily in his veins. Begging won't hasten that goal—Illya means to draw this out until Napoleon is a writhing, desperate mess, and Napoleon feels magnanimously willing to let him. 

"I have you well-trained, I see." Illya adds a second finger, slicked with enough of whatever he's using that it glides in with barely a whisper. Napoleon bites the inside of his lip and hopes, for one distracting moment, that Illya's not letting too much of it drip onto his pants, pooling around his ankles on the floor. They're all he has to wear out of here. 

"Well, there's nothing like THRUSH accommodation to teach a man the value of patience," Napoleon quips, "not when _you're_ the dividend," though he's starting to doubt his ability to keep up his end of the repartee much longer. From the warm weight of the body at his back before, his awareness of Illya has narrowed all the way down to those two fingers, and a hand on his hip, and the occasional whisper of breath against his skin when he speaks. What would he see Illya doing, back there, if he could see? Is he watching his fingers as they slide in and out of Napoleon's ass? Perhaps higher, up the line of Napoleon's body, the muscle of his back and shoulders, shivering intermittently? Maybe he's not watching at all, content to work Napoleon by touch alone. What would it take to induce Illya to describe the view? 

An answer of a sort comes unexpectedly in the form of a faintly stubbled chin rubbing across his ass cheek, then Illya bites him gently, before soothing it with his tongue. 

"Oh," Napoleon hears himself say. His calves have turned to lead beneath his shaking knees; there's not the strength left in them to push himself to his toes as Illya nibbles his way down Napoleon's inner thigh, nosing at the softer skin he finds before mouthing his balls, sucking oh-so-gently. Napoleon moans, and wonders how much longer his legs will be able to hold him up at all. 

"Ready for me, Napoleon?" Illya murmurs. The question is wholly hypothetical; the time Illya takes with his fingers has never been about _Napoleon's_ comfort. If he's reduced Napoleon to a twitching, begging wreck with his mouth and hands, long before taking his own pleasure, so much the better. Illya has never been a great believer in second rounds

"Always," Napoleon tells him. Illya hums in agreement and rises to his feet. The fabric of his trousers is rough where it brushes the back of Napoleon's thighs when he steps close. Napoleon hears him unzipping his fly and slicking himself in preparation, the sum total of his concentration narrowing to that one point of contact as Illya guides the head of his cock between Napoleon's cheeks, and presses smoothly forward in a slow, insistent glide, thick with promise.

A small eternity seems to elapse in the time it takes Illya to sheath himself fully inside him, and stop there. "Mmm," he sighs, moulding himself to Napoleon's back, his head turned to rest his cheek against the plane of Napoleon's back, his arms wrapped once more around Napoleon's body, hands pressed possessively on Napoleon's chest. 

He rocks forward, ever so lightly, and Napoleon breathes, " _Ah_ ," and wonders that they fit together so perfectly. Imagines, in a momentary flight of fancy, that he might now hold Illya here as surely as the chains hold Napoleon himself. It's a delicious thought.

"Comfortable, Napoleon?" Illya inquires, somewhat incongruously. But for the gentle motion of his hands, he seems now content to hold Napoleon—to hold himself within Napoleon—quite motionless. 

"That's… one way of putting it." 

"Then perhaps," says Illya, "this would be the juncture for us to return to the subject of your young friend, who has eluded our men so successfully."

So lost is Napoleon in the trance-like atmosphere of the moment that it takes him several long seconds to understand. "You…" he starts, "I thought you said you had no interest in questioning me?"

" _Little_ interest," Illya corrects, "and less of it personal. But I am being paid for my time, and I have been asked to try. My honour requires I make some effort to see what I might learn from you, token though it may be."

A sudden and disturbing insight into the motives underlying Illya's motionless state arrives in Napoleon's addled brain. "And if you don't get the answers you want?"

"I'm sure I'll tire of waiting eventually," says Illya, rather too casually. "How long do you suppose that might take?"

Napoleon almost laughs. The nerve of this gambit is at once appalling and so fundamentally _Illya_ that he feels a fool not to have seen it coming—that he ever supposed otherwise. He'd object to being used so, but hasn't he given much the same excuses to Illya, time and again, for using their time together to pry him with all manner of questions that might cast some little extra light on the internal workings of his employer? 

But never with the stakes so high; with an innocent life hanging in the balance. Giving in here is no option at all. 

"If you do not feel like talking," says Illya, as if sensing Napoleon's thoughts, "perhaps I shall talk, and we will see what you think of what you hear. You will have guessed that your companion has not been found. The island is not large, but it provides a surfeit of hiding places. There is no reason to suppose you know which she would have chosen. But perhaps you will have some idea where she is going, hm?"

Napoleon focuses on his breathing, attempting to tune out the hypnotic lilt of Illya's voice. The pressure inside him, heavy against his prostate, feels now like a promise of something else entirely. Napoleon is intimately familiar with Illya's nigh-superhuman patience and stamina; the particular pleasure he takes in keeping Napoleon hard and wanting until he's good and ready, before finally leaving him wrung out and dry, too exhausted to do more than pass out where he lies. It's all very well to say that the delay tortures Illya every bit as much as it tortures Napoleon—the reality is that Illya holds all the cards here, and that makes all the difference in the world. 

"You would not have advised her to attempt your rescue alone," says Illya. "You would not have come here without some plan as to how you would leave the island again without detection. We may presume it was by the same means by which you arrived. Am I right, Napoleon?"

Napoleon stares into the grey brick of his corner wall. "You haven't… said anything you weren't sure of yet." Over the past few years, UNCLE's research and intelligence divisions have dedicated considerable resources to the science of lie-detection—machines designed to divine truth from falsehood from the beat of a man's heart, or the conductance of sweat on his skin. They don't work all that well yet, not well enough to be trusted implicitly—but if there's anything to the theory, there can't be a single twitch of a muscle or a half-held breath that Illya isn't perfectly placed to detect in Napoleon's countenance now. 

"Then shall we move on?" whispers the devil on Napoleon's shoulder. "The obvious possibility: the two of you stowed away aboard our supply vessel, and snuck ashore unseen. Quite the coincidence that you were caught within hours of its arrival otherwise, no? But the vessel has now been searched thoroughly, and we have found no sign of your young friend."

"She isn't that young, you know," Napoleon offers. "Or a virgin." 

Illya's hands still briefly. "You're trying to make me jealous."

"Is it working?" It's the tactic of the desperate, but other options are thin on the ground.

Illya chuckles against his shoulder. "Should I be? I can see little reason for concern." A hand dips lazily to trace one particularly damning piece of evidence that Illya has Napoleon's full attention.

Napoleon gasps, " _Illya…_ " He's hardly putting it on for effect; they'd both felt his erection jump under Illya's hand.

"Now you're definitely trying to distract me," Illya chides him nonetheless, which Napoleon thinks quite unfair. 

"You're very distracting."

"Do you need me to repeat the question again?" asks Illya, with infinite patience. "We _searched_ the ship, Napoleon. We did not find her, but as a precaution, the doctor has taken the liberty of releasing some of his new agent into the hold. There's a pause, as Illya lets Napoleon digest this bombshell. "But that does not seem to bother you."

_Maybe we aren't as close as you think_ , thinks Napoleon, but there's a hysterical giggle caught in his throat above that quip, and he can't risk letting either out. His entire body is one giant tell, and Illya knows it. 

"If not the supply ship, your own craft, perhaps," says Illya. "Something small—a two-man boat could easily reach the island. It would not be impossible to conceal once landed, though there must be limited places you could come ashore unseen. Perhaps she has the skill to guide that craft home herself if she can find her way back to it. Am I on the right track, Napoleon?"

Napoleon breathes deeply and gathers what thoughts he can muster. "If you're right, she could be already long gone." It's true, even without the qualifier. Locked in his airy cell, without so much as a ticking clock to pass the time, Napoleon has no way of knowing what might have passed outside.

"Perhaps," Illya agrees. "Perhaps you have nothing to lose by telling me where you hid your boat when you came ashore."

Oh, if only Napoleon could believe that—if he could be sure she's gone; that there'll be nothing for THRUSH to find, no matter what he lets slip here and now. It would be so tempting to give Illya that one useless gem of information to satisfy his superiors, and end this impasse. 

So tempting that the fact Napoleon _doesn't_ take that easy out may be enough to tell Illya much more than he can risk. "Well," says Napoleon, carefully, "I'd… hate to take my chances."

"And the longer you take to answer, the longer she has to get away?"

"A small sacrifice to make in the name of prolonging your good company." There's something almost hypnotic in the gentle glide of Illya's hands across his belly.

"Ah, Napoleon," Illya breathes, "How long do you think you can hold out? All night?  
Of course, there's a third possibility. Perhaps our men have not found her craft because there is none, because someone is coming back to collect her…"

Some suitably witty comment, perhaps to the effect that Napoleon would count himself lucky to last as long as all _afternoon_ , dies in the back of his throat. It's a strange turn of phrase for Illya to choose. Even if he's exaggerating to deepen his threat, it's a clumsy way to do it… 

…or what if it's much later than Napoleon had let himself hope?

Napoleon looks carefully down his body, nerves alive with the sense-memory of a narrow buckle and strap, scraping lightly over his skin as Illya's hands shifted. Sure enough, there's a watch on Illya's wrist; Napoleon can almost see it properly. But the cuffs on his own wrists hold his arms taught, and Napoleon can crane his neck downwards only so far. The watch face lies at an oblique angle, indecipherable. 

What could he do to entice Illya to raise his wrist, to turn it where Napoleon could see? It's hardly a natural gesture for any other purpose, let alone for Illya's current ones. Could he feign interest in the watch itself, perhaps—concoct some idle theory about its provenance? Illya would likely assume it merely another distraction, but he might still play along—though he'll inevitably guess that Napoleon really just wanted to know the time—and soon, if not right away…

It hits him like a start of laughter that there is one, very simple, way to learn the time for sure. 

Napoleon licks his lips. "Surely," he says aloud, "it isn't as late as all that. Is it?"

A sudden stillness to the body behind him tells Napoleon that the weight of that idle question hasn't passed Illya by. 

"The time?" says Illya, equally cautious, the earlier tease dying in his voice. "Does it matter?"

"It could," Napoleon admits, "matter a great deal."

Silently, Illya raises his left arm to bring his watch level with Napoleon's face. Napoleon stares at the positions of the hands like a schoolboy learning the art of reading a clock face for the first time, in a wash of disbelief that tingles at the base of his chest, just a little like _hope_. It's _much_ later than he'd realised…

Even as he gapes at the gift before his eyes, his better judgement warns, _it could be a trap_. Illya could have set his watch forward. He still hasn't _technically_ lied to Napoleon, except by omission…

Napoleon swallows once, and chooses his words carefully. "Illya… don't take this the wrong way, but how far can I trust this particular timepiece?"

The watch tips slightly as Illya shrugs. "It has probably gained or lost a few fractions of a second since I reset it to the local time zone. Would you like to quiz me about its provenance as well, or may I take it as read that the time has some deeper significance of interest to you?"

Napoleon's eyes drift closed, relief mixing with a strange sort of gratitude in his veins. Illya _could_ still be lying to him—it would be a simple enough ruse to engineer. But Illya doesn't lie to him—not like this, not so plainly—of that, Napoleon is sure. If he's a fool to believe that… well, everyone has to believe in something. 

He licks his lips. His throat feels suddenly very dry. "I'll tell you how we came here, Illya. You see, there's an old smugglers' tunnel, leading to a sea cave on the west cape. You can still reach it at low tide."

"That's where she's hiding?" asks Illya, carefully. 

"That's where her friends were coming to pick us up," Napoleon confirms, "at an agreed-upon meeting time… that passed over an hour ago."

For a long moment, Illya goes very still. "Then by now, she will be long gone," he observes. "If your Carla has told your friends at UNCLE where this facility is to be found… it would be most negligent of me to tarry here any longer." 

So distracted has Napoleon been by his own thoughts that it hadn't actually occurred to him that Illya would more than likely come to exactly that conclusion, and it's with no small private horror that he considers the possibility that his confession might produce quite the opposite of the intended reaction. 

"But what sort of reward would that be," Illya goes on, his hands on Napoleon's chest beginning to move once more, "when you've been so very cooperative?" 

"A poor one." Napoleon agrees. "I might have to think twice about being so obliging again in future" Or at least about making Illya promise to finish him off before agreeing to answer his questions

Illya shifts his hips a little—less a thrust than a slight redistribution of weight—and runs a hand downwards over Napoleon's stomach until his fingers find their way into the fuzz of dark hair at the base of Napoleon's cock. "That would be terrible manners," he agrees, and closes his hand into one long, wonderful stroke that runs all the way up his length before leaving him. "And such a waste… of _such_ an opportunity."

His other hand moves upwards to capture Napoleon's throat in the V of his thumb and forefinger, higher still until he can cup Napoleon's chin, almost as if Illya would cup his own face, less a threat than a caress. "Will you beg me to fuck you, Napoleon?" he whispers. 

Napoleon shivers. "Circumstances being what they are," he manages, "I have an obligation to make this last, don't I?"

"Is that what you _want_?" With a hand on Napoleon's hip, Illya draws himself back until only the tip of his cock remains inside, then thrusts home, slow and deliberate.

"Oh, _yes_ ," Napoleon murmurs, as Illya finally begins to move in earnest, though unhurried even now. The pace he sets owes nothing to urgency, just enough force behind each thrust to make him tremble at the knees. 

"Mmm," Illya murmurs, mouthing the nape of Napoleon's neck. "So you _did_ have a clever plan to get out of here. How devious of you, delaying me this way."

This time, it's breathlessness that makes the laugh catch in Napoleon's throat. If he's done anything devious, it's to back Illya into a corner where he can't risk taking his time in finishing this. 

"Naturally," Napoleon manages, "you've a clever plan to foil me." It's no easy thing to hold a complex thought; the timing of Illya's thrusts leaves an exquisite gap just long enough to let him rediscover new that wonderful pulse of raw pleasure each time Illya pushes forward. 

"Oh yes," Illya breathes, hotly, into his ear, "I'm going to wring you dry and leave you. By the time I'm done, you won't be able to stand."

Napoleon tries for an answer, manages only a moan. Illya's promise goes right to his cock—and that Illya's hand follows does no harm. 

"How long do you think we have," Illya asks him, between slow, deliberate thrusts, stroking him in counterpoint—to expect him to answer now is nothing but cruelty, "before your friends at UNCLE come to take you away from me?"

Napoleon honestly isn't sure. If Carla's friends arrived to collect her on time, then she'll be on dry land again already. By now, UNCLE knows exactly where Napoleon is—and how well guarded. By now, they'll be mounting a response. If they have helicopters already standing by… but another thrust from Illya, and he's lost that train of thought altogether. 

"Are you worried Dr. Achilles might expect you to give him… more than a five minute warning?" Napoleon asks, vaguely. There is perhaps still time to evacuate to their supply ship, if it's still sitting in the dock, but not to evacuate their machines and equipment. Certainly not time enough to make a boat that size vanish out to sea; it's hardly a vessel built for speed. A life-raft or several might manage to slip the noose, but Napoleon doubts very much the doctor has it in him to row all the way to a safe harbour. To abandon that much expensive THRUSH-owned equipment could be more dangerous to his future career than surrender to UNCLE would be. 

"How do you suppose they might take it if they burst in to find us like this still?" says Illya, in that familiar, playful tone. 

Napoleon smiles ruefully. "I don't think they have any illusions about the nature of our relationship."

"But there is knowing, and then there is _knowing_ ," Illya presses, "knowing the _sounds_ you make for me." The sounds Illya, with one well-aimed thrust, shows that he's wholly adept at drawing from Napoleon on cue. 

Even coming from Illya's lips, Napoleon can't say the idea of being caught in the act by his superiors does very much for him. "It would probably kill the mood," he admits.

"Well," says Illya, "We couldn't have _that_ …" and his pace goes ragged and furious, until Napoleon can no longer find the space between one thrust and the last, that wonderful burn of pleasure building inside him until he'd swear it's more than he could contain, hardly knows how he hasn't come yet until he feels Illya groan and spill inside him in a delicious rush of liquid heat—until the hand on Napoleon's cock shakes with it, his whole body shakes with it as he comes too.

The cool of the air on Napoleon's back, when it arrives, is neither a pleasant nor particularly welcome addition to the afterglow. That Illya is no longer touching him becomes apparent only belatedly, through the unprocessed memory of a kiss to the side of his head and a whispered apology, or a promise.

Stiff from standing so long in one place, Napoleon doesn't fully register any change to the forces holding the universe to its present shape until Illya is back again, easing him gently down to the floor.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Illya had made good on his promise: Napoleon is indeed barely able to stand when Carla returns with backup to rescue him. If any of them suspect the reason for his unusual lassitude, they have at least the decency to pretend to think he's been horribly tortured instead. 

He's awake enough to inspect the prisoners before they're all marched back to the to their (captured) supply ship, which never had made it out of its berth before rescue arrived. Illya, at least, is missing from their number, which Napoleon takes with little surprise. 

Probably for the best. He doubts he'd be in the position to be nearly so hospitable a jailor with their positions reversed.


End file.
